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Thursday, August 8, 2013

August Theme: HOT TOPICS by John Claude Bemis

Too many stores for young readers seem only to have been
published simply to capitalize on a trend that’s suddenly become hot. You see this in particular in the every-trendy
teen world of Young Adult novels. After Twilight, you couldn’t turn around in a
Barnes and Noble without knocking over a display of vampire, zombie, or
assorted other paranormal romance novels.
TheHunger Games unleashed a torrent of dystopian knock-offs, all
riffing on the tried and true love triangle along with a flaming emblem-cover
for good measure. Most recently,
alien-and-space ship sci-fi seems to be dominating the YA section. With love triangles of course. In the case of the newest hot commodity The 5th Wave, a love triangle
that includes a hot alien.

Middle-grade is not immune to trends. After the Wimpy Kid books, there was a rash
of doodle-filled diary-style series that took off. Percy Jackson’s success brought forth any
number of myth and legend-based fantasy adventure books. How many schools for witches and wizards rose
up after Harry Potter? You needed
Hermione’s time turner just to keep up.

The best books whether for Middle-Grade or Young Adult
readers are the ones that don’t follow trends.
The books that are timeless. The
books that become classics because they are unparalleled anywhere else on the
bookshelves.

Too many aspiring authors are desperate to figure out what
trend is next. Too many published
authors too! Writers shouldn’t look to
the market to figure out what book to write.
They should look in their own imaginations. They should look to their own artistic and
storytelling sensibilities.

Likewise if a writer is inspired to pursue a story idea that
builds on yesterday’s hot trend, they shouldn’t quit on that idea just because
it seems like the market no longer wants those books. Look no further than Holly Black’s newest
novel The Coldest Girl In Cold Town,
a vampire story no less. Every editor
and agent has been saying for years, “No more vampire stories!” However if you write a story that is original
and strong, it doesn’t matter whether it fits into a passé trend or not.

In other words: don’t let the market tell you what to
write. Thrust down that urge to
capitalize on what’s hot. Write the book
you want to read. Write the book that
only you would write. Do it well enough
and you might just be the writer who starts the next hot trend.